Many may only see collegiate Greek life as a cultural group who hides their partying behind community service hours and charitable donations. However, I want to challenge that stereotype by emphasizing the professional development and self-improvement opportunity that's presented to Greek life members - especially people who hold leadership positions. Currently, I serve my one-hundred member sorority as chapter president and use other officers to steadfastly keep up a well-balanced, structured, and involved organization.

Fraternities and sororities must operate as a company first, and a socialite second in order to be successful. I want to point out some key concepts that show the relation between Greek organizations and businesses.

Greek organizations:
• Divide officers into teams to work with specific areas of the chapter
• Must operate on a strict budget, fueled solely from member's dues
• Must market themselves well to be able to continue to recruit new members
• Have mission statements and values to put on their members to and gear their brand
• Must follow rules from, and report to, their national headquarters
• Have insurance to cover their organization and its members, as well as many policies and procedures in area for holding events

They're just a couple points that show how Greek organizations are ran as the ultimate business, combining friendship with professionalism and offering members a good opportunity for personal development.

As president, I see all sides of managing a Greek organization and must help every officer no real matter what team her position is a part of. My days are full of constantly making decisions and weighing the consequences. I discovered to make fair decisions that benefit the more good, while remaining unbiased in the process. I also answer to everyone's questions and concerns while problem solving when an unplanned event takes place. For example, we had a small crisis with flyers that were made to advertise an event we were having. When they came in, we noticed the contact email on the flyers was spelled wrong. After some deliberation, we made a decision to use the flyers we'd and made a fresh email address with the typo included.

A huge part of running a successful organization is beneficial and professional communication. Our main forum of communication between officers and the advisory board is emailing. I have learned how exactly to properly send and react to emails in a specialist manner. My communication skills have improved substantially since being fully a leader of my chapter. I discovered to communicate concisely and format information in the top way. I are finding providing information in bullet lists is the greatest way to have members to see messages fully. Our officers must hold team meetings and get reports of progress in the different areas on their team. Officers are responsible for organizing their own meetings and taking minutes to record that which was discussed. Greek organizations teach members to effectively and professionally communicate through emailing, holding meetings, and working together with others.

One of the very most valuable traits that I am still learning through my presidency, is how to get more comfortable with hard conversations. I work closely with our Director of Standards and Ethics to make sure our members are holding themselves to the high ideals and values. When someone is falling behind, it is our job to have conversations together about why this is happening and what we could do to ensure it generally does not happen again. These tough conversations become even tougher when remembering that the members of our chapter are also our friends and sisters. As a leader of a Greek organization, I am learning how to have these hard conversations while remaining in control of myself and the conversation.

Greek life has a lot more to provide compared to social aspect of the organization, and can truly prepare young adults to participate the professional world. Through developing members personally, and developing officers professionally, Greek organizations could possibly offer life-changing collegiate experiences that can't be found elsewhere.